Dolphin
Dolphin is an open-source Nintendo GameCube, Wii, and Triforce emulator for Microsoft Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X (Intel-based). It is the first emulator to successfully run commercial Nintendo GameCube and Wii games and is the only emulator capable of running commercial Wii games. Its name refers to the Nintendo Dolphin, which was the development codename for the GameCube. History Origins (2003–2007) Dolphin was first released in 2003 as an experimental Nintendo GameCube emulator that could boot up and run commercial games. However, it had terrible performance and many games crashed on start up or barely ran at all; average speed was from 2 to 20 FPS and audio emulation did not exist. Dolphin was officially discontinued in 2004, with the developers releasing version 1.01 as the final build of the emulator. However, the developers decided to revive the project in 2005 and then in 2007, version 1.03 was released with minor improvements and a little sound support as compared to version 1.01. Open Source and Wii Emulation (2008–present) Dolphin became an open-source project on July 13, 2008 with the developers releasing the source code under the GPLv2 as well as creating a public SVN repository on Google Code with basic Wii emulation implemented. This attracted various developers and development on the emulator has continued since with SVN builds being released regularly, unlike before, when it was Closed Source.Coders began releasing builds under the label of 'unofficial SVN builds' rather than the previous 'official' releases, as well as the new builds being released by their revision number (e.g. RXXXX) instead of version numbers (e.g. 1.03) like in the previous builds, differences between consecutive builds are also usually minor. Dolphin's Wii emulation reached a milestone in February, 2009 when it made a breakthrough managing to successfully boot and run the official Wii System Menu v1.0. By now, Dolphin can boot all versions of the Wii OS. There is however not yet support for Wii channels, except for the disc channel. By April 2009, most commercial games, Gamecube and Wii alike, have been able to be fully played albeit with a few minor problems and errors, with a large number of games running perfectly. Many changes to the emulator have improved speed for both x86 and x86-64 users achieving full speed or higher speeds than the Gamecube and Wii itself. Sound has dramatically improved. Graphics in most games are also almost perfect except for a few minor problems. By late October 2009, numerous new useful features were incorporated into the emulator such as automatic Frame-skipping, which increases the performance of the emulator as well as increased stability of the emulator overall. Also improved was the NetPlay feature of the emulator, which allowed players to play multiplayer Gamecube and Wii games online with friends, as long as the game doesn't require a WiiMote. The GUI was reworked to make it more user-friendly. The DirectX plugin has also been fixed and brought up to speed with the current OpenGL graphics plug-in. Features The development builds of Dolphin may have new enhancements, fixes, and experimental features which will eventually be in an official release. Dolphin's team is asking the community for suggestions for new and more useful features they want in Dolphin. Current features include: *Action Replay support *Xbox 360 Controller support, with rumble *iPhone support, with motion control over Wi-Fi *Experimental NetPlay *Anti-aliasing, anisotropic filtering *Save states *Memory Card Manager *Real and emulated multiple Wiimote support *Wii Remote expansions support. *DSP HLE and experimental LLE *WAD (DLC games) support *Limited support for Homebrew and XFB emulation *Hi-Res Support, Texture Dumper, Free Look *Tool-assisted speedrun support *Post-processing pixel shaders *OpenCL hardware accelerated texture processing High-definition support Dolphin, like most PC emulators, supports arbitrary resolutions, whereas the Gamecube and Wii only support up to 480p. This feature has been widely lauded by the gaming community and has received features on numerous gaming networks, as the emulator has surpassed the limits of the original console. Emulation Status Dolphin is able to run many Wii and GameCube games in almost full emulation with few minor errors. Various compatibility lists document which games run perfectly, and what settings need to be tweaked in order to ensure no glitches. These are some notable games which are compatible with Dolphin: *''Super Smash Bros. Melee'' *''Super Mario Galaxy'' *''Super Mario Sunshine'' *''Resident Evil 4'' *''New Super Mario Bros. Wii'' *''Super Smash Bros. Brawl'' *''F-Zero GX'' *''Rayman Arena'' *''Metroid Prime 3: Corruption'' *''Mario Kart Wii'' *''Mario Kart: Double Dash'' *''Mario Party 4'' *''Harvest Moon: Magical Melody'' *''Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King'' *''Tales of Graces'' *''Mario Party 8'' System requirements Dolphin runs best on a computer with a multi-core processor and a graphics card which supports OpenGL/DirectX, Pixel Shader 2.0, and OpenCL. Preferable graphics cards are those manufactured by nVidia or ATi. Dolphin is able to accept input from a mouse, keyboard, joypad, joystick, Wii Remote, and microphone. Minimum requirements * Operating System: Microsoft Windows (2000/XP/Vista/7) / Linux / Apple Mac OS X (Intel version) * CPU: Pentium 4 or Athlon 64 with SSE2 * GPU: OpenGL 2.1 or DirectX 9.0c compatible Reception Dolphin has received widespread acclaim across various independent gaming sites such as Kotaku and 1UP.com for its achievements most notably the ability to play games in high-definition. It has also been highly praised for the high compatibility of games with the emulator and the ability not just to emulate one but two consoles. It has also received the attention of many websites due to it being the only emulator to properly emulate a seventh generation console. Best Settings For performance: If you know the best settings, press the edit button above! For Quality: If you know the best settings, press the edit button above! Category:6th Generation Consoles